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Monorail should be a lesson to all transport ministers

"As the monorail counts down to its final loop ... it is difficult not to be livid at what might have been."

It is the most reliable and efficient piece of public transport in Sydney. It is truly faultless - if you live in Pyrmont and work in the city. For the other 5 million of us, as well as many tourists, the monorail has been an expensive few minutes of family fun on a day out in the city. Its tracks offer welcome shade when you walk across Pyrmont Bridge.

Yet most will not notice its imminent passing after 25 years, let alone mourn it. As the late author and Nobel laureate Patrick White put it, the monorail was ''one of many autocratic farces perpetuated by the powerful on our citizens''.

Or the then opposition leader Nick Greiner: ''The monorail is an environmental obscenity and a planning absurdity''.

As the monorail counts down to its final loop carrying 48 balloted passengers at 9.30pm next Sunday, it is difficult not to be livid at what might have been.

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The other transport project proposed in the mid-1980s to serve the newly developed Darling Harbour as part of Australia's bicentenary in 1988 was a tram line, taking in the new precinct but also running from Circular Quay to Central along Sussex Street.

The monorail, while a boon for the businesses of Darling Harbour in delivering them tourists, was a poor decision made predominantly by NSW public works minister Laurie Brereton when the late Peter Abeles muscled the Labor Party. Abeles didn't just want the monorail; his company, TNT, paid for it and built it.

His view of it was: ''I don't know any other system that would be better than this''. The incoming Greiner government should have pulled it down as it had promised and proceeded with the light rail. Neither party got it right.

Twenty-five years on Premier Barry O'Farrell, who in the 1980s was working in Bruce Baird's office, has come good on Greiner's promise.

The O'Farrell government's decision was made on the advice, in January 2012, of Infrastructure NSW, of which Greiner was the chairman.

"The monorail is not integrated with Sydney's wider public transport network and has never been truly embraced by the community, and we can't justify the costly upgrades required to keep it running," Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian said.

What's more, it has to go to make way for the rejuvenation of the Darling Harbour precinct. That, too, will be controversial, given the increasing opacity of the O'Farrell government in its approach to big projects such as the Barangaroo redevelopment and the rightly ditched Sydney Harbour helipad. So as the monorail demolition begins next week, we lose our reminder of what might have been, as well as a chance to reminisce.

The monorail website has attracted scores of photo uploads for its monorail memories archive project. Some, it seems, recall fond days - perhaps for the solitude, with travel numbers rarely reaching expectations.

It was not for want of trying. Marketing campaigns pushed the limits in trying to encourage Sydneysiders and visitors: ''One should rise above it - traffic jams are a thing of the past with Metro Monorail. It's not so public transport''; ''Welcome to high society''; ''Fly for $3.33''; ''Get there schooner''; ''Up up and away''; ''a good pick-up line''; ''Experience gluteus maximus - travel with maximum comfort in Metro Monorail'' and, of course, the most ironic of all, ''Take a victory lap''.

While passenger numbers have increased as the days count down, let the failed monorail experiment be a lesson to every infrastructure and transport minister who follows.

The right options with public transport are those that serve our city beyond a very big party, beyond a year and beyond a quarter century.

And what of that tram line? In its budget this week the government has committed funds to begin building the light rail from Circular Quay to Central, along George Street, extending to the eastern suburbs. Better late than never.